Artipedia - Arts News

The San Jose Museum of Art

Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions
March 11—July 8, 2007

The San Jose Museum of Art
110 South Market Street
San Jose, CA 95113
408-271-6840
http://www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org

On March 11, 2007, the San Jose Museum of Art (SJMA) debuted Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions, a major survey of ballpoint pen works on paper and canvas by Il Lee. Lee’s ballpoint abstractions are innovative, forward looking, and historically grounded. Using ballpoint pens, Lee creates intimate to large-scale blue and black ink paper drawings and large format, subtly colored works on canvas. These works are contemporary and clearly reference traditional Asian ink painting while remaining accessible and conceptually rigorous.

"The San Jose Museum of Art is honored to present Lee’s first major museum solo exhibition in the United States,” said Daniel T. Keegan, Oshman Executive Director of the San Jose Museum of Art. “With having shown his work in New York, Paris, and Seoul, Lee’s art is ready for a more in-depth survey exhibition tracing the development of his unique medium, not normally associated with fine art: the ballpoint pen."

Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions begins with work dating from the early 1980s. After earning his BFA in Painting from the prestigious Hong-Ik University in Seoul, Korea, Lee moved to New York to study at the Pratt Institute, where he earned his MFA. Here Lee began using the ballpoint pen and this unconventional medium soon became his artistic signature. He utilizes the traditional medium of ink with a contemporary twist, employing either blue or black pens.

"Lee harnesses the tension that exists between opposing forces of tradition and invention, creating a harmonious balance,” said JoAnne Northrup, Senior Curator at SJMA. “His work speaks to the larger role that art plays in our lives: of creating opportunities to reflect; observe; contemplate; and ultimately understand on a deeper level."

Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions reveals Lee at the height of his abilities, working with mastery and experimentation in his signature ballpoint pen medium. Lee’s work has the look of frenzied activity—one can sense the actual movements of his arm; and yet it is contained, controlled, and modulated activity—order within chaos. It is both monumental, and personal; seen from a distance, it’s imposing, yet up close one has a completely different experience due to the rich texture and the simple materials.

Lee became known for his moderately-scaled works on paper. Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions brings together for the first time these earlier works along with his impressive, large-scale works on canvas and paper created in the past two years.

EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION
Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions is organized by the San Jose Museum of Art. The exhibition curator is JoAnne Northrup, Senior Curator at the San Jose Museum of Art.

Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions is generously supported by Yvonne and T. Michael Nevens, Art Projects International (API), New York, and Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.

PUBLICATION
Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions, published by the San Jose Museum of Art, features essays by JoAnne Northrup and Edward Leffingwell, New York-based art critic and writer. The book is available at the San Jose Museum Store or by visiting http://www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Please contact Valerie Shagday at 408.271.6881 or vshagday@sjmusart.org.

Established in 1969, the San Jose Museum of Art is a distinct voice in the San Francisco Bay Area arts community. The Museum is recognized for its contemporary collection, which reflects the West Coast contextualized by national and international visual art. The collection reflects the unique evolution of the institution from a small civic art gallery to a museum in the tenth largest city in the United States.

The San Jose Museum of Art is distinguished by its commitment to accessibility, education, and community outreach. Open six days a week, the Museum’s hours are: Tuesday – Sunday 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. General admission is $8 for adults, $5 for students and senior citizens; a $2 discount for San Jose Library cardholders. Children six years of age and under are free. For general visitor information, visit the SJMA Web site at www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org or call 408.294.2787.

Contacts:
Nicole McBeth
San Jose Museum of Art
408.271.6880
nmcbeth@sjmusart.org

Shari Boxer Baker
JDS Group Communications
408.888.5449
sboxerbaker@jdsgrouppr.com

For more information go to: http://www.sjmusart.org/content/events/event_info.phtml?itemID=305

EUROPEAN ART PROJECTS

MEGASTRUCTURE RELOADED
SAVE-THE-DATE Preview:
22 September 2007
Exhibition Dates: 23 September –
25 November 2007 in Berlin

Archigram, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Yona Friedman / Groupe d’Etudes d’Architecture Mobile, Archizoom, Superstudio, Jose Davila, Simon Dybbroe Moller, Ryan Gander, Franka Hoernschemeyer, Gordon Matta-Clark, Victor Nieuwenhuys & Maartje Seyferth, Tobias Putrih, Tomas Saraceno, Katrin Sigurdardottir, Tilman Wendland

Curated by Sabrina van der Ley and Markus Richter

In autumn 1964 the fifth edition of Archigram magazine, dedicated to the subject Metropolis, was released in London. Along with Archigram’s designs for Plug-in City, it showcased, among others, Constant Nieuwenhuys’ urban vision New Babylon and Yona Friedman’s La Ville Spatiale. These works now rank among the incunabula of the 1960s. Combining visionary architecture, pop culture, art and situationist rebellion, they became known far beyond the confines of urban planning. The designs still hold their fascination today, not least due to their unique aesthetic quality. Hence it is not surprising that individual plans or models were shown at Documenta and large museum exhibitions over the years.

Until now, however, there has been no exhibition dealing explicitly with the megastructuralists’ vision. MEGASTRUCTURE RELOADED seeks for the first time to show La Ville Spatiale, Plug-in City and New Babylon in context. Alongside Archigram, those represented will include Constant, Friedman and his comrades from the Groupe d’Études d’Architecture Mobile, such as Eckard Schulze-Fielitz, as well as the radical Florence groups Superstudio and Archizoom, whose designs at the end of the 1960s constituted an ironic response to the megastructuralists.

The exhibition will not be a documentary representation however; instead the megastructuralists are to be tested for their currency and relevance to the problems of contemporary urban design. The focus will be on the connection, so significant for these designs, between spatial structures and visual art, as well as on actual architectural and urban-design issues, while examining whether megastructures offer a feasible conceptual approach for the problems of fast-growing mega cities. Thus, integral parts of the project will be a symposium with international scholars and a workshop with young architects, architectural students and researchers.

Moreover, the exhibition will prominently feature works and installations by contemporary artists Jose Davila (MX), Simon Dybbroe Moller (DK), Ryan Gander (GB), Franka Hoernschemeyer (DE), Gordon Matta-Clark (US); Victor Nieuwenhuys & Maartje Seyferth (NL), Tobias Putrih (SI/US), Tomas Saraceno (AR/DE), Katrin Sigurdardottir (IS/US) and Tilman Wendland (DE). Their subject specific installations will be developed directly for the exhibition and reflect the idea of megastructures as well as the structures of today’s mega-cities. Only Gordon Matta-Clark’s seminal work Conical Intersect from1975, an intervention at an old building facing the construction site of a rare example of actually realised megastructures, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, is an already existing work, which will be integrated in the exhibition.

MEGASTRUCTURE RELOADED continues the long-term research and exhibition project Utopia Revisited, which includes workshops, symposia, publications and exhibitions throughout Europe. The project started last year with the exhibition Ideal City - Invisible Cities encompassing works by 40 international artists in public places and several institutions in Zamosc, Poland and Potsdam, Germany (June – October 2006, curated by Sabrina van der Ley & Markus Richter). The project will be continued with the exhibitions Things to Come, focusing on visual arts and science fiction (curator: Doreet Harten) in 2008 and Finis Terrae: The End of the World (curators: Sabrina van der Ley & Markus Richter) in 2009. Utopia Revisited will conclude with the exhibition Arcadia in 2010.

MEGASTRUCTURE RELOADED is funded by the Capital Culture Fond, Berlin

Project Partners: Archigram Archive, London, Art Forum Berlin, Center for Metropolitan Studies, Berlin; Greige / Buero fuer Design, Berlin, Weiss-Heiten Design, Berlin/ London/ Paris

For images and further information please view http://www.megastructure-reloaded.org or contact Anne Maier at European Art Projects, Tel. +49-30-30 38 18 37, Fax +49-30-30 38 18 30, am@european-art-projects.eu

EUROPEAN ART PROJECTS
all@european-art-projects.eu

http://WWW.MEGASTRUCTURE-RELOADED.ORG
http://WWW.IDEALCITY-INVISIBLECITIES.ORG
http://WWW.EUROPEAN-ART-PROJECTS.EU

For more information go to: http://WWW.MEGASTRUCTURE-RELOADED.ORG

Le Plateau / Frac Ile-de-France

SOCIÉTÉ ANONYME

Curators: Thomas Boutoux, Natasa Petresin and François Piron.
A project realized at Le Plateau, Paris, as a part of Hospitalities, a season of exhibitions organized by the network Tram.

March 14 to May 13, 2007

http://societeanonyme.blogg.org/

With: 16Beaver / Un groupe comme les autres (New York), b_books (Berlin), Erick Beltrán (Mexico), Chto delat? / What is to be done? (St. Petersburg / Moscow), Curating the Library / Moritz Küng (Antwerpen), Nico Dockx & Friends (Antwerpen), Tere Recarens (Barcelona / Berlin), tranzit.cz / Vít Havránek (Prague), tv-tv (Copenhagen), WHW / What, How & for Whom (Zagreb)

Exhibition Design: Modul-8 (Paris-Belleville School of Architecture)

Le Plateau / Frac Ile-de-France
Place Hannah Arendt (intersection of the rue des Alouettes and the rue Carducci), 75019 Paris
Phone: +33 (1) 53 19 84 10
Contact: info@fracidf-leplatau.com
Open to the public from Wednesday through Friday from 2:00 to 7:00pm,
Saturday and Sunday from 12:00am to 8:00pm
Free entry
http://www.fracidf-leplateau.com

Société Anonyme proposes to throw light on a time and activity rarely visible within an art exhibition: that of the studies, site-specific researches, and the first constructions and discussions that lead to new projects. A group of artists, collectives and art structures – run by artists and/or curators – coming from various cities around the world, are hosted in residency in Paris and invited to imagine and carry new projects in dialogue and collaboration with artists, intellectuals and like-minded producers living in France. What is at stake with this exhibition is on the one hand to provide the invited guests with a productive context of work and on the other hand to render visible and intelligible to the French audience the energies that fuel these practices developed abroad, the modalities of their research, and their respective economic apparatuses.

Société Anonyme transforms the exhibition space of Le Plateau into a collective office of sorts where the artists will display and regularly discuss their ongoing researches and productions. The time frame of the exhibition will be shaped by a dense programme of events ranging in formats from presentations and lectures to more performative and spontaneous actions. France-based artistic initiatives, artists, theoreticians and art students will be also closely involved in the activities and dynamics of the exhibition. This will be enacted for instance in a weekly programme of public discussions called “The Problems of the Week” where, every Saturday afternoon, the guests and the hosts will confront their ideas and experiences on a series of topics defined by the curators:

1. Polyvalence and multi-activity (Part 1): ungraspable identities?
2. Self-organization: collectives, structures; does size matter?
3. Alternative television: what, how and for whom?
4. Portraits of the artist as researcher.
5. What manifestos for today? Artistic statements and intentions.
6. Polyvalence and multi-activity (Part 2): precariousness or model economy?
7. Critical theory: what traffic and uses in contemporary art?
8. The problem with Société Anonyme

The various discursive events of Société Anonyme will progressively give content and shape to the reading room in the exhibition space. After this first period of research, productions by each of the guests (journals, books, films, etc.) will emerge and will be co-produced by Société Anonyme and gathered again in Paris at the end of 2007.

The project owes its title to Société Anonyme Inc, the organisation founded by Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray in New York in the early 20s, and which was dedicated to promote European art in the USA by sponsoring many lectures, concerts, publications and exhibitions. The project in Paris also borrows to the original Société Anonyme its motto: “Art, not personalities”, and in this sense wants to promote contemporary alternative artistic practices that exist first and foremost through exchange, dialogue, autonomy and the energy at work.

Société Anonyme was made possible thanks to the support of the Fundacion Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, La Locale TV and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville (ENSAPB). Work Method is a partner of the Société Anonyme project, with the support of the American Center Foundation and the Kadist Art Foundation.

The Frac Ile-de-France is an initiative of the regional council of the Ile-de-France region. Le Plateau / Frac Ile-de-France / Le Plateau is supported by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, the Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs of Ile-de-France, the Paris’ City Hall and the Caisse des Dépôt. It is a member of the Tram Network and of Platform, the regrouping of the French Fonds Régionaux d’Art Contemporain.

For more information go to: http://www.fracidf-leplateau.com